Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is a classical tree-ring study in a temperate climate region (Poland, Western Pomerania), where the climatic signal embedded in the Oak ring width is rather weak. The authors used traditional methodology for such type of research. They utilized quite large data (24 study plots, 358 Oak trees), cross-dated the samples, built the residual chronology (almost 500-year-long), identified the dominant climatic signal (positive reaction of ring width to Jun-July precipitation of the current year, to August of the previous year and negative - to air temperature of the current year and to August temperature of previous year). This correlation is quite logic and predictable. Than the authors presented the precipitation reconstruction of June-July and compared it to the historical records. They stated that the correspondence of the two lines of evidence is not perfect for various reasons (imperfectness of both records).

In my opinion, this is potentially interesting and useful piece of work, but I see several weaknesses.

1.       At the Fig.5 one can see that the EPS of the chronology is quite low except for a short period in 19th-20th centuries, thus the chronology is valid only for this short interval that is not much larger than the instrumental period of meteorological observations.

2.       At the Fig. 6 it is demonstrated that the statistical analyses were performed for  rather short (1981-2020) reference period, while in the text the information is different: “The analyses were carried out separately for air temperature (T), precipitation (P) and insolation (IN) over the period of data availability: for  T from 1931 to 2021, for P from 1861 to 2021, and for IN from 1965 to 2021”) – why is that?

3.       The Residual chronology is used for the reconstruction. This type of chronology kills the low frequency component. Despite if this, at the fig. 5 we see a clear long-term signal that the authors explain by “…the diverse ages of the oak trees …. and  from the impact of conditions within the habitats, in which the trees grow.” In my opinion, the explanation should be deepened and illustrated by appropriate statistical analyses because it impacts the results.

4.       At the Figure 7 it would be better to superpose the Indexed chronology and the actual rainfall in the June-July to better show the correspondence of the two records. At the Fig. 8 we see that the  correlation is rather unstable and sometimes drops up to the insignificant values.

5.       It looks like the area is heavily affected by human activity.  I guess this also influenced the tree growth and may affect the results of this study. More details and analysis is required here.

6.       In the Discussion the authors do not mention two most relevant studies:

“Cook, E. R., Seager, R., Kushnir, Y., Briffa, K. R., Büntgen, U., Frank, D., ... & Zang, C. (2015). Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era. Science advances, 1(10), e1500561.”

“Cook, E. R., Solomina, O., Matskovsky, V., Cook, B. I., Agafonov, L., Berdnikova, A., ... & Yermokhin, M. (2020). The European Russia drought atlas (1400–2016 ce). Climate Dynamics, 54, 2317-2335.”

I think the authors should try to follow the way of Cook et al. and try to target their reconstruction to a different parameter such as Palmer Drought Severity Index that combines the temperature and precipitation signals.

I would encourage the authors to re-submit to paper.

Author Response

ATMOSPHERE                                                                                    Szczecin, 22.08.2024

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

 

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks.

  We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 1

1. EPS is above 0.85 for the entire analyzed period (in Figure 5B this level is indicated by an orange dashed line - the colors were changed at the request of one of the reviewers) and this value/threshold is commonly used in dendrochronology (see: e.g. Wigley et al. 1984, Dobrovolny et al. 2018, Balanzategui et al. 2018, Pechtl and Land 2019, Li et al. 2020, Zhang et al. 2024, Li et al. 2024).
2. The results of the rainfall-increase relationship are stable over time, the analyzes were performed for various periods and the highest and statistically significant values ​​are always for the summer months. However, we actually showed quite a short period here, we are currently correcting it - the new period is: for temperature (T) - 91 years (1931-2021), precipitation (P) - 1861-2021 (161 years) and sunshine duration (IN) - 1965 -2021 (57 years). These are the years with available meteorological data.
3. The main point of creating a residual chronology was to eliminate low-frequency variability as much as possible. Thanks to this, we exposed to the highest possible extent short-term variability, related to the annual variability of the climatic factor, which turned out to be the sum of precipitation in the period June-July of the year of formation of the tree-ring. Unlike other studies of this type that address the problem of climate reconstruction, we did not look for medium-term (long-term) fluctuations in rainfall in the past. Our goal was to designate certain specific years, extreme summers in terms of rainfall, and verify the amount of rainfall based on available historical archive data. The statistical analysis proposed by the reviewer, taking into account medium-term variability, would achieve other goals than those set in the work. Moreover, we see serious difficulties in analyzing medium-term changes in the studied trees in the absence of data on their biological age and changes that occurred around them, related to changes in the habitat conditions in which the trees grew or changes in the competitive situation around them. The reconstruction of rainfall based on specific years seems to be much more valuable to us, especially since it could be verified by us based on archival source data.
4. Figure 7 shows the indexed chronology (see the description of the vertical axis on the right) and the amount of rainfall in the period June-July, as suggested by the Reviewer.
5. All tree stands in Western Pomerania are the result of human activity, which has been living in this area for several thousand years (these are not inaccessible mountains or areas far from human settlements), therefore, of course, the impact of human activity on the annual growth of trees cannot be ruled out (sometimes greater, once smaller). When choosing the period for calibration, we tried to minimize these influences.
6. Thank you very much for pointing out these publications, they were used in the discussion:

Cook, E.R., O. Solomina, V. Matskovsky, B.I. Cook, L. Agafonov, A. Berdnikova, E. Dolgova, A. Karpukhin, N. Knysh, M. Kulakova, V. Kuznetsova, T. Kyncl, J. Kyncl, O. Maximova, I. Panyushkina, A. Seim, D. Tishin, T. Wazny, and M. Yermokhin, 2020:  The European Russia Drought Atlas (1400–2016 CE).  Climate Dynamics, 54, 2317-2335.

Cook E. R., Seager, R., Kushnir, Y., Briffa, K. R., Büntgen, U., Frank, D., ... & Zang, C. 2015. Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era. Science advances, 1(10), et al. Sci. Adv. 2015;1: e1500561.

We would also like to thank you for the idea of ​​using PDSI as an element for reconstruction based on the oak chronology. We will definitely test this idea, but in this article we reconstruct summer rainfall.

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks. We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

 

Research data will be placed in an open repository after the article is accepted for publication.

 

We hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,
the authors

Anna Cedro, Sławomir Wilczyński, Bogdan Wertz, Radosław Gaziński, Małgorzata Kirschenstein, Przemysław Sztajner and Stanisław Musielak

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

8/11//24

Review of, “Cedro et al., “Reconstruction of summer rainfall…Pomerania.”

The manuscript is well written in clear idiomatic English, and neaarly free of apparent errors.  I think it could be published nearly as it stands.  Below I point out a small assortment of minor issues, and a couple possible small adjustments.

------------------------------

Line 4.   millennia is misspelled

Line 69.    Present both oak species names here?  A little context on the two oaks would be useful.   Do they have differences relevant to dendrochronology?  Different habitats?   Lifespans?  Climate sensitivities? (Q. robur more lowland, Q. patraea more upland I think.)    I believe the two species are similar and closely related, so probably  their TR responses are the same, but it might help to mention this.    It would be traditional to give the authorship for the two oak species, and family (Fagaceae):

Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.

Quercus robur L.

Plants of the World Online is a  useful basic reference to subject species:  https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:304293-2

Line 138,  top of Fig. 3.  Should that say “monthly” temperature, instead of “annual”?

P. 6. Break up that long complex paragraph?

Fig. 5.  Could the colors in parts A and B be different since they represent different variables?    Probably my oversight, but there is no mention of the green line (Rbar?)  in the Fig. 5B caption.

Line 314. What is insolation?

Fig. 9.  Orange and red look identical in review copy.

Table 1.  The Parameter column repeating 39.0 not of clear importance.

Table 2.   If the prior late summer is critical for growth ring response (line 516), can that somehow be checked or reflected in Table 2?  For example, if one year has  favorable (cool, cloudy rainy)  late summer in the historical accounts, does that show as a broad early wood in the following year’s dendrochronology?

Line 484, should say “genus” instead of “species.”

P. 18.  Does this long historical account fit better in the Intro than Discussion?

Line 509 unclear wording “remaining seasons”, maybe change to “prior months” or similar?

Line 516. This seems highly interesting and important.   I’m not suggesting it is not true for temperate oaks, but being a salient and relevant point, direct citation(s) and quantification beyond the broad generalization would help.   (The references on line 522 seem insufficient as the paragraph is written.)   Line 536 seems to contradict line 516.

To repeat for emphasis, I think the article is nearly “ready to publish,” so please see my comments as “hopefully helpful considerations of a random reader.”  Thank you for the opportunity to review this fascinating work. 

Author Response

ATMOSPHERE                                                                                    Szczecin, 22.08.2024

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks.

  We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

Lines 4 - there is no word millennia in line 4, is it line 46?, we have corrected the word here Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Line 69 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion. A description of both oak species was also added to the description of the research area;

Line 138 - Figure 2, the word annual was replaced by the word monthly; Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

P.6. - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Fig. 5. - The colors were changed in accordance with the Reviewer's recommendations, the caption under the drawing was added; Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Line 314 - Thank you for your attention, it is about sunshine duration (in hours); Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Fig. 9. - The colors were changed in accordance with the Reviewer's recommendations, Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Table 1. - Column 5 deleted, table caption added; Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Table 2. - historical sources for summer periods preceding the years indicated in Table 2 were searched and the information was supplemented, Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Line 484 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

P.18. This part actually fits both the introduction and the discussion, the discussion has been revised to take into account comments from all reviewers; thank you for your attention;

Line 509 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Line 516 - This sentence and the following have been changed, Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks. We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Research data will be placed in an open repository after the article is accepted for publication.

We hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,
the authors

Anna Cedro, Sławomir Wilczyński, Bogdan Wertz, Radosław Gaziński, Małgorzata Kirschenstein, Przemysław Sztajner and Stanisław Musielak

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper reconstructs summer rainfall over the past five centuries in Northwestern Poland using oak tree-ring data. It identifies periods of excess rainfall and drought, verifies these findings against historical records, and discusses the implications of the findings for understanding past climate variability. The use of a long-term dataset (500 years) provides significant insights into historical climate patterns. The combination of dendrochronological data with historical records adds robustness to the findings. The methodology is well-detailed, allowing for reproducibility and transparency in the research process.

 

Here are my comments/questions:

In the introduction section, the authors propose four questions "identify those climatic elements, to which the oak (Quercus spp.) displayed growth sensitivity in Western Pomerania (NW Poland); (ii) assess the temporal stability of the sensitivity of the oak to main climatic elements shaping its growth reactions; (iii) reconstruct the identified climatic elements determining tree-ring width in the oak over the last five centuries in Western Pomerania; and (iv) verify the correctness of the reconstruction against historical records. " I recommend the authors to give all their answers in the discussion section and find any other answers from other publications and discusse with them.

For all the equations, please number them.

Figure 1: Missing the lon/lat information.

Table 1: Missing the units.

Line 355 Put this part of text to the method section.

Author Response

ATMOSPHERE                                                                                    Szczecin, 22.08.2024

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

 

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks.

  We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 3

All suggestions of Reviewer 3 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Figure 1. Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Table 1. Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion;

Line 355 -  Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks. We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Research data will be placed in an open repository after the article is accepted for publication.

We hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,
the authors

Anna Cedro, Sławomir Wilczyński, Bogdan Wertz, Radosław Gaziński, Małgorzata Kirschenstein, Przemysław Sztajner and Stanisław Musielak